Menu

this home is up in flamesthe one we built together for thirteen yearssmoke is everywhere with flames up to the ceilingthe heat is too much and I can’t save everyoneI can’t save you from these flamesin this burning house we are together againcan I come back in my nightmares?our children are here tooand they’ve got to gothey can’t burn down toobut you, you won’t leaveyou won’t come out of the firewill I ever hold you again?the flames I didn’t know were coming for us have engulfed it allour lives all went up in smokethere’s no way to get back to youto keep trying will kill meI didn’t know that I was so close to such a fire for years as the heat level rose unbeknownst to mecaught completely unaware by the burning down of all our dreamsyou lit this fire it seems, gathered the supplies, doused everything with gas when you drove off dark-thirty that cursed sunday morninglit the match and threw it on us all, even yourself, when you kept on driving across the country and never looked backyou let the fire blaze on and onwill I ever really know why?will the feeling of wanting desperately to run into your arms and convince you life is indeed worth living ever go away?we could have fought the flames together had you given us the chanceyou took choice away from me, away from your childrenyou took all the power and you left us on your own terms, with the flames threatening to take us out alongside you.part of me never left that burning housepart of me burned up, never to live againbut I got the kids and we left through the smoke and confusionwe made it out, you didn’tI will never touch you againnever feel your body laying alongside mine againnever kiss your lips or run my fingers through your hairnever hear your laugh again or ask you for your advice and hear your thoughts on life and love and everything inbetweenam i destined to sleepwalk the rest of my life trying to get back to you over and over?your actions have almost ruined meour lives and souls so intertwined on every possible leveli still love you, and yet i’m so angry nowwe will never get over thiswe will never fully be okay againyou scarred our children and robbed them of knowing you and all the future times they will need their dadwe are destined now for this eternal dance of love and hate, of shock and disbelief, of how life somehow keeps going wherever it can even when your worst nightmare comes true.our burning house burned completely down to the foundationonly ashes left, piles and piles upon ashesin my dreams I walk through the flames to find you and run into your arms, to lay down beside you and hold you tightour love will always now feel more painful than beautiful, you wrote that destiny for us.damn you, how could you leave us to burn to the ground?I would’ve done everything in my power to fight the flames with you, we could’ve overcome the fire, I believe that. you didn’t. you sold me short. you didn’t know how strong I was. you cheated us all. you decided for us all and you were wrong, so fucking wrong.

I wrote the following a year ago in April 2017. Little did I know that three months after typing these words my most horrendous grief experience would crash down around me like a relentless and unstoppable tsunami:

“Grief is ever-changing like the moving water in a river or ocean, never stagnant or completely still. There is always something happening, something stirring under the surface or above, or both. Sometimes grief is a like a river in how it winds and twists and turns. Sometimes grief is like an ocean with its strong currents, undertows, and merciless waves coming again and again and again. Sometimes grief is like a ferocious hurricane over the waters, gathering force and spinning out of control, bent on destruction of some sort or another, affecting whatever is in its path. Sometimes grief is like the constant drip drip drip of a leaky faucet, always there and annoying in an innocent dutiful naive manner. Sometimes grief is like a rainstorm on a tin roof that sings a comforting song with its melody.

I hate grief. And yet. It is cleansing and clarifying, and altogether terrible and sweet and relentless, all rolled up into a world of its own. Like water can be, at times it is comforting and warm; but it can also be jarring and dangerous, even life-threatening. It is a world I never feel I belong in, yet when I visit I no longer feel a stranger there, I feel like it is a place I have been before and know well, yet wish I never had to visit again. And yet. I often feel connected in ways in the throes of grief that somehow feel solid, that allow me to feel close to what and who I have lost. That closeness seems at times to fade or go in and out of focus, like a tether to that long lost loved one, or a camera that just cannot seem to find its sweet focus spot anymore, the connection changes as the grief changes. Some days it is undeniably strong and unavoidable like the pain of a fresh burn; others it is a faded other-world-ness dream of a life lived in an alternate space, a space that often seems just out of reach if I try to touch it. Grief crashes, drowns, tricks, surprises, contorts, burns and cracks, and yet it also envelopes, hugs, clears, strengthens, and straightens. Grief is ever-changing.” (Zoe Turner, April 2017)

//

Present day thoughts on this writing from a year ago: Well fuck me. Holy fucking shit. Yeah, I guess I thought I knew a thing or two about grief a year ago. I did know something on some level, but now it’s like walking along the streets of a town and feeling the wind and air hit your body versus reading about traveling to that particular town and what it must be like to visit there. Worlds apart, at least this is my lived experience. Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for the suicide of my beloved person, my spouse. None of the former griefs, they all paled in comparison. My missing then dead spouse trumped them all, hands down. My world literally exploded. There were no patches large enough, no way to keep everything put together.

I’m learning to engage with grief better. I’m learning her ways, her tricks, her truths, her shortcuts, and her long winding paths. I’m going to keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how hard, because I don’t get a do-over, there are no replays, this is it, this is my life and I will live it.

{zt}

//

No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

{Heraclitus}

//

“…We have this physical experience in loss of falling toward something. It’s like falling in love except it’s falling into grief.

And you’re falling towards the foundation that they held for you in your life that you didn’t realize they were holding. And you fall and fall and fall and you don’t find it for the longest time. And so the shock of the loss to begin with, and the hermetic sealing off, is necessary in grief. But then there comes a time when you finally actually start to touch the ground that they were holding for you.”

I feel like my heart has been jerked from my body and thrown out into the cosmos. I thought it would never return to me, that it, that I, was lost forever. Lost not only to myself but those others still here who relate to me and love me. Having your person die is a tearing away of cosmic proportions. There is no small part of you left unaffected or untouched.

Little by little, piece by piece, I am returning to myself and the pieces are rearranged. Nothing is what it was before. That wall between before he left and after he left, it is impenetrable, unscaleable, and unable to be busted through. The wall is not even an actual wall, it is though it is another time, another place, another dimension, and there is absolutely no getting back there, no matter how hard I try. This wall is final. It represents an ending, an ending of so many things. But the truth is no matter how much at times I just want to continue to wail at the wall, it is also a beginning point. Every step I take away from the ending point is a step towards what is to come and what is the now. It is something we scream against yet fight to accept all at the same damn time.

I don’t want the changes, yet I must have the changes to survive. I don’t want to love again, yet I actually really do. The emotional whiplash caused by your partner dying is almost indescribable. I’ve never experienced anything as horrific as finding out they died by their own hand and having to sit your children down and tell them their Dad is dead and why he is dead. Suicide is its own brand of horrible, it’s own breed of monster. It rips you to shreds until you yourself feel dead inside, yet slowly life begins to arrive at the door and, as blood does, it seeps back into every crack and crevice.

{zt}

>>>>>{this was a guest post a few days ago on the Widow Dark Thirty blog, found HERE}

i used to think i knew what happened when people died. i comforted myself with images of heaven, of a better place, of no more crying and no more pain. the reality is i don’t know what really happens when someone dies. i can guess, but i don’t really know. the old adages don’t bring any comfort anymore. truth is brutal to swallow.

i used to think i had experienced the worst traumas i ever would. i thought i had seen enough of my share. childhood sexual abuse, the divorce of my parents, acquaintance rape in highschool, clergy abuse in highschool and college, being asked to leave a church due to said clergy abuse while they encircled the hurting pastor and his family, the stillbirth of my second child, the miscarriage of my fourth child, losing the scaffolding of the christian faith and christian god that I had built and based my entire life upon…and then the sudden disappearance of my husband and his suicide eighteen days later.

i am sitting here tonight, six and a half months later, still trying to figure out how my life turned into this. supposedly there comes a point where you figure out how to stop asking the questions, how to stop trying to figure out what the hell happened, how to keep the internal tsunami at bay that still desperately wants to save him.

i cannot imagine another man in my life, although i want it and parts of me feel guilty for wanting it now. maybe i want it this soon because of how it all ended. but the reality is that i am not a loner. i don’t do life well without close friends and without a man i love who also loves me back. there is so fucking much i want and need to be different from here on out, but before i nail down all those specifics i just want another human being to look me in the eyes and tell me they see me and that they believe i’m going to make it up and out and away from this ground zero. i want to believe that i can trust again, that i won’t let fear dictate my life from here on out because of all the staggering losses.

there have been days i have wanted to box it all up and call it quits, but really that is not an option i want deep down inside, nor is it an option i would ever pursue. giving up, throwing in the towel, no fucking way. feeling hope again? i sure as hell hope so. feeling wanted again? yes, please. i didn’t die when he left our house quietly one sunday morning. i didn’t die when he pulled the trigger to end his own life. i didn’t die. i didn’t die. i didn’t die. i am alive. i am here. i get to be here. my life is no small thing. i don’t take my own life lightly, i don’t hold it carelessly. i’m here and i want to live. i want to keep living. and i will as best i can.

i wonder sometimes what becoming a widow suddenly and traumatically is supposed to look like and feel like. i wonder if i’m anywhere within normal or if i’m just totally screwed up and can’t even tell. i just don’t know. does anybody really? i know it’s not all black, there is still color. it’s not all tears, there is still laughter. it’s not all sadness, there is still beauty and enjoyment to be found. if you had asked me a year ago what i thought life without him would be like i never would’ve guessed right. it would’ve been too far outside my lived experience. but I can tell you now. it’s hell and it’s not hell, it’s a nightmare and yet it’s not, it’s horrific and maddening, and yet on some days it’s mostly just exhausting and confusing. and every now and then some normalcy seeps in the cracks of this shattered life and you see flickers of light that tell you that you are still very much alive, and life is still very much worth breathing for.

I’m scratching and clawing my way to you right now in this very moment just to be here, to show up and tell you what a horrible mindfuck 2017 turned out to be. My amazing and beautiful husband of close to thirteen years died by suicide in August. It has been the horror of horrors. He went missing in July and we tried desperately to find him for about three weeks. I am almost five months out now from the two police officers coming to my door and telling me what I never dreamed in my worst dreams I would ever ever hear. I’ve missing writing here, and I’ve shared some on select places on social media, so this may not be a shock to some of you. Even now as I sit in a new state, in a new house, after a hellacious Christmas that at least my children enjoyed, I want to scream as loud as I can and run across the world to search everywhere for him, to find him, to save him, to bring him back.

On one hand I’m ready for 2017 to go the hell away, but on the other hand I’m not ready to enter a new year he will never experience, where he will not be here to make memories with. Life has not become all darkness, but the darkness touches everything on every level. I’m a fighter and I will keep fighting, but I never thought in my worst moments that life would become what it has become, that his life would come to such a traumatic end, when he was such an incredible beautiful soul.